Approving expense forms

This section explains how to review and approve an e-xpense form. Pre-authorization requests and expense reports appear on separate screens, but otherwise the approval process is the same for both.

To review and approve an expense form

Follow the steps for logging in. There are two ways that you can access e-xpense approval functions.

While you are logging in: In the Go to dropdown list, select Approve expenses. The Approve Expense Report screen usually appears; you can click the Pre-Authorization tab if needed. If there are pending requests but no pending reports, then the Approve Pre-Authorization Request screen appears instead when you log in.
After you have already logged in: From the upper-left corner of any application screen, click Expense > Expense Approval, then select either Pre-Authorization or Expense Report. Either the Approve Pre-Authorization Request or Approve Expense Report screen appears.

Hint: If you ever want to switch between the different expense approval screens, click the appropriate tab.

For each expense form, you can see the request number or report number, description, employee name, submit date, amount, request/report status, and, if applicable, who delegated it to you.
If you have already approved the expense form, then you can see an icon to the right of the status.

Note: For pre-authorization requests only, e-xpense displays the status as Report Created if the request is approved and the employee has created an expense report based on it.
By default, the screen displays submitted and partially approved forms awaiting your review. If desired, click the check box under Status(es) for each status for which you want to view expense forms. You can check as many of the following statuses as you wish.

Submitted to view forms that have been submitted by employees but not yet fully approved or rejected by approvers.
Partially approved to view forms that have received at least one approval but fewer than the full number of required approvals.
Approved to view forms that you and all required approvers have already approved.
Rejected to view forms that have been rejected by you or another approver.
My Partially Approved to view forms that have received at least one approval but fewer than the full number of required approvals, and you are one of the approvers who has approved them. To view these forms, you must also select the Partially Approved check box.
All to view all forms in the system that you are authorized to approve. Note that you cannot view forms that your employees have not yet submitted, meaning those with an Open status.

Then, click Retrieve to view expense forms that match the statuses you selected.

You must review the expense form before approving it. Do one of the following, depending on whether you want to review one form or multiple forms.

One expense form: Click Select to the left of the request or report that you want to review. Either the View Pre-Authorization Request or View Expense Report screen appears with the request or report that you selected.
Multiple expense forms: Click the check box to the left of each request or report that you want to review, then click Review Selected. Either the View Pre-Authorization Request or View Expense Report screen appears with the first listed request or report among those that you selected.

The order in which the expense forms appear depends on how you sorted the list on the previous screen; by default, it's sorted by request number or report number. At any time, you can select from the Pre-Authorization Request or Expense Report dropdown list to move among the requests or reports that you selected to review.

Review the expense form. In addition to the data on the form’s main screen, you can view additional information. Button images appear different if they contain data.

On either a pre-authorization request or expense report: For any location code on the request or report, you can review details like per diem rates by clicking to the right of the location code.

On a pre-authorization request:

If the employee was away from the office while incurring the expense, click Travel Info and/or Itinerary Info.
To see a breakdown of the employee’s estimated expenses, click Itemize Cost.

On an expense report:

View a summary of expense distributions by clicking Distribution Summary. The Expense Distribution Summary screen lists all jobs and/or org9s that the employee distributed to on this report. If applicable, it shows separate lists—one for charges to the employee’s home org9, and another for charges to other org9s—then shows total amounts both for each list as well as for all distributions.

To change the data to view for each distribution, select an option from the View Expense Summary By field. Depending on your company’s setup, you may be required to review the distribution summary before you can approve the report.
View information such as foreign currency, number of attendees, mileage, and an explanation by clicking to the right of a cell.
If the screen displays a Variance button, you can click it to view the difference between the estimated amount on the pre-authorization request and the amount that the employee entered on this expense report, as well as the explanation that the employee entered for the variance.
If applicable, view the pre-authorization request that this report is based on by clicking Review Request.

If you are approving an expense report, and if receipts are required for any of the expense categories on this report, you can acknowledge that you have received expense receipts.
If a password field appears to the left of the Approve button, enter your password here. This is the same password that you use to log in.
To approve the expense form, click Approve. e-xpense updates your approval status to Approved.

Note: If your company has special certification text that it wishes you to view before approving, you can click Read Certification to the right of the Approve button.
e-xpense presents a message to confirm that you have successfully approved the expense form. The screen that this occurs on depends on whether you selected one expense form or multiple expense forms to review in step 4.

One expense form: e-xpense returns you to the previous screen. Repeat the above steps to approve additional requests or reports.
Multiple expense forms: e-xpense brings you to the next request or report listed among those that you selected. Repeat from step 5 to approve this request or report.

If you approved the last request or report listed among those that you selected, then the Approve Pre-Authorization Request or Approve Expense Report screen appears instead, even if there are more requests or reports in the selected list that you did not yet approve or reject.

Approving expense forms

See also